An Underground Railroad Love Story

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD LINKS (2015)

The Underground Railroad, William Still (Philadelphia, Porter & Coates, 1872)
Published seven years after the Civil War and the official abolition of slavery in the United States and written by William Still, the son and brother of fugitives, Chairman of the Acting Vigilant Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the Underground Rail Road, and connected to the Anti-Slavery office in that city. The testimonials in most cases are first-hand accounts, given by the actual fugitives themselves.http://www.undergroundrailroadexperience.cuny.edu/topics.html

Uncovering William Still’s Underground Railroad, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has begun work on a new digital history [that] weaves new connections between the manuscript journal and published book of William Still, known as the “Father of the Underground Railroad.” This effort provides extraordinary insight into the experiences of enslaved individuals and families who passed through Philadelphia between 1852 and 1857 and the covert networks that aided their escape.http://hsp.org/history-online/digital-history-projects/uncovering-william-stills-underground-railroad

Record of Fugitives, Sydney Howard Gay
In 1855 and 1856, Sydney Howard Gay, the editor of the weekly abolitionist publication, the National Anti-Slavery Standard and a key operative in the underground railroad in New York City, decided to meticulously record the arrival of fugitive slaves at his office.
Available online at: https://exhibitions.cul.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/fugitives

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, Eric Foner, WW Norton & Co, 2015. The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom.http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Gateway-to-Freedom/

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and AbolitionYale University, New Haven, CT. A part of the Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, dedicated to the investigation and dissemination of knowledge concerning all aspects of chattel slavery and its destruction.http://www.yale.edu/glc/index.htm

Amistad Research CenterThe nation’s oldest, largest and most comprehensive independent archive specializing in the history of African Americans and other Ethnic Minorities.http://www.amistadresearchcenter.org/

NYC Underground Railroad[excerpt] ” While oysters were being shucked in the kitchen, and distinguished crowds of diners from New York’s business and political establishment feasted at Thomas Downing’s Oyster House at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, the proprietor’s son, George, led fugitive slaves down into the basement. Amid bottles of wine and molasses, they found shelter from the bands of blackbirders, bounty hunters roaming the streets in search of runaways.”http://racematters.org/safehavens.htm

National Underground Railroad Freedom CenterOpened on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati in 2004, the mission of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is to reveal stories of freedom’s heroes, from the era of the Underground Railroad to contemporary times, challenging and inspiring everyone to take courageous steps of freedom todayhttp://freedomcenter.org/

Transatlantic Slave Trade – United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO)“The transatlantic slave trade, often known as the triangular trade, connected the economies of three continents. It is estimated that between 25 to 30 million people, men, women and children, were deported from their homes and sold as slaves in the different slave trading systems. In the transatlantic slave trade alone the estimate of those deported is believed to be approximately 17 million. These figures exclude those who died aboard the ships and in the course of wars and raids connected to the trade.”http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/dialogue/the-slave-route/transatlantic-slave-trade/

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database“Information on more than 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It offers researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history.”http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces

Slave Rebellions: A TimelineSlave owners lived in fear of slave revolts, a fear which was far from unfounded: from the Amistad mutiny to the Underground Railroad, American slaves—led by themselves or with the help of abolitionists—staged many instances of revolt and resistance.http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/natturner/slave_rebellions.html

The WEYANOKE Association: Red-Black* History & Culture from Our Own PerspectiveThe Weyanoke Association promotes research in, and the sharing of, Black (African and American African) and Red (Native American or Indian) history and culture, and the places where they intersect.http://weyanoke.org

The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery,The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, NY
The only facility of its kind based in a public research library, includes 400 rare items of printed material, making the Schomburg Center home to one of the world’s premier collections of slavery material.http://www.nypl.org/about/locations/schomburg/lapidus-center

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, NY
The Schomburg Center is recognized as one of the leading institutions focusing exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Begun with the collections of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg more than 85 years ago, the Schomburg has collected, preserved, and provided access to materials documenting black life in America and worldwide.http://www.nypl.org/about/locations/schomburg

The National Park Service Network To FreedomA national Underground Railroad program to coordinate preservation and education efforts nationwide and integrate local historical places, museums, and interpretive programs associated with the Underground Railroad into a mosaic of community, regional, and national stories.http://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/

Underground Railroad Quilts

While there is controversy in the quilt community about the validity of using quilts as a means of passing along messages including warnings, safety, and shelter, there is no dispute that African American women contributed greatly to the making of the family quilts meant to be heirlooms.

Believe that slave quilts contained hidden codes or not, here are some of the designs (PDF) shared by Ozella McDaniel Williams in her book, Hidden in Plain View.

Aleeda Crawley, the talented Firberartist, made the amazing quilt used in Singin. For more information, and/or a quilt of your own, contact her at: Aleeda Crawley, Fiberartist/Owner Sacred Space Fiberstudio, LLC.

Also for kids: The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom. "Now that Hannah’s papa has decided to make the run for freedom, her patchwork quilt is not just a precious memento of Mama — it’s a series of hidden clues that will guide them along the Underground Railroad to Canada." Ages 5-8, Grades K-3. $7.50. 32 pages. Color.

Vienna Carroll with Quilt by Aleeda Crawley used in Singin (photo: Dixie Sheridan)